


love is not all

by Caolan Vane (darkflameoracle)



Series: Follow My Lead, I'll Follow Yours [2]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Demacia, Demacian Ranger-knights, Dissociation, F/M, Falconry, Heartbreak, Valor is just a bird, i mean he's smart and all but she's still a falconer and he's still a birb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 22:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16463276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkflameoracle/pseuds/Caolan%20Vane
Summary: Love is not all: it is not meat nor drinkNor slumber nor a roof against the rain;Nor yet a floating spar to men that sinkAnd rise and sink and rise and sink again...Some things are just not meant to be. Garen and Quinn, as a couple, are one of those things. After a night of bonding, when the pair of them admit their attraction and love for one another, Quinn, in all her ability to handle emotions, begins to consider the impact of her actions. And in such, she begins to consider where this relationship might actually take her.Spoiler alert: girl lets fear get the better of her.A culmination of some roleplaying plots with DemaciasBrokenWings on our blogs on tumblr, justicewinged and burden-and-truth. Happens before the Fall of Demacia plotline.





	love is not all

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DemaciasBrokenWing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemaciasBrokenWing/gifts).



> So, the whole poem that this title is based on is down at the bottom, should you want to read it. :)
> 
> If you haven't been following either Omega or my blogs this fic may not make sense, but it should still be a delight regardless. I've had a beta reader look over this from beyond the fandom and even she enjoyed it, so here we are. If you're looking for the threads on our blogs that lead up to this, the relevant ones would be The Knight and His Bird, and more recently Broken Light (which happens immediately after this one). 
> 
> Apologies to those of you following Green as the Woods, things got busy and I haven't had much time for ficwriting. Enjoy this diversion, though!

 

Morning sunlight streams in through the windows of Garen’s room, and a headache throbs between Quinn’s temples.  _By the light, how much did I drink last night?_

Quinn rolls over from her side to her chest between the soft blankets and pillowtop mattress, supporting herself by her arms. Still, Garen sleeps beside her, shuffling slightly in his sleep as she moves. Memories of the night before washed over her with a mix of horror and regrets. This is  _terrible._ An event like this could get her stripped of her post – or worse, sent back to Uwendale with nothing to show for herself. Not even Valor. 

This thought constricts her throat and throbs in her chest, but she can’t bring herself to do anything but move, despite Garen’s quiet keen to keep her in his bed.  She replaces the skirts and petticoat she’d worn the night prior, despite their rumpled nature now, and starts towards the door. It is there she makes the mistake of looking back one more time, where Garen lies sleeping, his face peaceful, if mildly concerned, the blankets twined up around him in a soft knot by his cheeks. It tugs her heart to abandon this serenity. But she still pulls away, still, she leaves the way she’d come on foot. Garen’s horse was not hers, no matter how well the sturdy gelding liked her. 

The road is quiet as she walks. People don’t seem to see her – she is dressed nicely for a commoner but plainly for a nobleman, a happy middle ground to not be questioned. She drops her keys before she enters her home to hear Valor screaming from the back of the house. 

“I’m coming,” she mutters, a little impatient with herself. 

Then, she goes through her morning routine: dresses, arms herself with her crossbow, takes Valor from his mew and starts their morning hunt through the petrified forests to the north. She follows him as he finds his prey, helps him land it. Quinn lets her companion eat a little more than usual – she hadn’t fed him at his normal time, so she figures he could use it. 

There on, Quinn forces herself into such a routine of business as normal. 

She comes home, works on paperwork mindlessly, draws and sketches needed images for her superiors, listens, obeys. Garen is still around. Still, he pursues her, and still, she can’t find it in her heart to tell him “no, I can’t.” Quinn knows she shouldn’t struggle to put her foot down to him; after all, he’s only a man, and a man besides that she should not be with, for to be with him is to risk her job. They exchange glances when they’re in official war room meetings. He knows she still loves him. She can’t tell him she doesn’t because she would be lying if she did. 

The next days, from there on, are a blur. Quinn wants to focus on anything. Maybe Garen’s blue eyes offer solace, but she always remembers the potential for something bad happening. The potential to lose Valor. The potential to be reduced to farm labor the rest of her sorry life. All of those are in but one look, so she stops looking.

The downside of this habit: Garen is no fool. He notices. He pulls her aside, they close the office door, and Quinn half thinks he is going to press her into a corner and kiss her passionately. (This passion has been the only thing keeping their romance alive to her, the senseless, pointless kisses that only make her heart hurt more.) But he doesn’t. He sits down at his desk like a commander about to discharge her, his elbows on its surface, his face buried in his hands. His cobalt eyes search a distant place she can’t quite pinpoint, but Quinn has half a mind that he’s searching the future or the past or a combination therein, something to that effect.

Quinn takes the seat across from him, and that eye contact breaks with the unknown to look upon her. He has a sad tilt to his brow. He knows, he  _knows_ ,  _he knows…_  She’s silent for a long moment, embarrassed, hurt, nervous… 

Garen breaks the uncomfortable quiet. “What’s wrong?” he inquires.

Not losing her composure, Quinn just shakes her head. 

He falls silent, too, and she knows the both of them are delaying the inevitable. 

“You know you can talk to me if you ever need anything,” he says softly. “I’ll be there for you, I swear.”

Quinn knows that his swear is truth, that whenever he swears in such a way he could be believed. It was a part of his knightly honors, his tradition as a family, the oaths, the promises… but she can’t believe in her heart that he  _could_  live up to this promise. She  _loves_ Garen, but in that love comes heartache, and in that heartache, she doesn’t  _want_ to love him.

She only nods in response. Then he kisses her, sends her off, and they scarcely speak for another week. It is the same, but this guilt weighs her down further and further, she bottles it up until her heart feels like it’s breaking. Heartbreak. That’s all it was, all along. This worry and stress, it’s all been her heartbreaking, for she wants something she cannot have.

Upon coming to this realization one dreary, lonesome night, while the clouds hide the moonlight from reflecting off petricite walls, Quinn is bright and early the morning following to visit the ranger-knight general, Montagne, who is quietly watching the younger recruits in the yard as they spar, occasionally barking orders, rearranging stances, pointing out flaws in handling… He stops when he sees Quinn, who is far too talented and old, for that matter, to be sparring with these adolescents.

“Selby,” he addresses her, watching her distantly as she approaches him.

“I was told I’d find you here,” she replies. “I need to talk to you… it’s not that private. We’ll just be a minute.”

The elder general rests a hand on her shoulder and gestures in the direction of a bench, out of the way and in the shade. She watches his recruits with a blank stare. Once, she was in their position, learning, placed with the fear of being discharged and sent home for their division. It’s a struggle to be offered to remain a ranger-knight.

“How many new rangers, General?”

He makes a brief eye contact, his gaze boring through her as always. “That is not why you’re here, to discuss the nuances of our training regimen, is it?”

Quinn breaks her gaze. She can’t lie to him. “I need to be transferred away from Garen Crownguard.”

“I will put in the paperwork.”

There is an understanding on his voice, a deep, low solitude. And to an extent, Quinn can’t blame him – ranging is lonely work. But just as Montagne doesn’t ask, she doesn’t ask; she says nothing more, and he leaves her to finish what she started. Now, there is only the business to inform her soon-to-be estranged beloved of what she might be doing.

* * *

 

Quinn waits for the paperwork to go through first. It arrives in her mailbox the following Thursday, stamped, notarized, and officiated. She will be working with another commander, a middle-aged gentleman who by all reports has done much good for Demacia. This new commander – Lavoie – is just as reputable as Garen, though with no fancy regiments to lead. He is no Dauntless Vanguard, but he  _is_ in a high place. In a way, if it weren’t her leaving someone she loves, this could be a promotion for her. She will be working on missions now closer to the king’s heart and plans. Maybe she’ll travel more now, keep her mind away from Demacia City, away from the stress that comes with having loved ones around. She knows General Montagne would never put her, his prized Wings, with anyone  _he_  didn’t trust, so she trusts Lavoie will be a good commander.

From here, Quinn must make her plan. She sits at her draft table with a large sheet of parchment before her and Valor, for moral support, at her side.

“So, Garen has his schedules, right?” she says to the bird, knowing full well he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “He spars with the prince for an hour around dawn, normally when I’m getting your breakfast…” She pauses to write both of those things down so she might make time in her day to see him when he wouldn’t be too busy. “Then he works with the recruits, then he is on duty until lunch… lunchtime, that’s it.”

Valor gives a soft throaty call in his beak, as if he, too, is worried about the situation. Valor would stay home that day; she has no need for him to be in the way when things are bound to get emotional. The last thing she needs is for Valor to get defensive of her because she got upset.

As such, Quinn goes alone.

With papers in hand, she pauses outside Garen’s office. He always takes his lunch in there. She sometimes shared lunch with him in there before, but today, she has no food, just a fistful of paperwork, already run, in her casual uniform sans armor. The collar of her shirt currently feels all too noticeable, apt to choke her.

When she reaches the door, she stares at his nameplate, golden against the whitewashed door, hand poised, waiting for her nerves to return to her to knock. She pauses there for a long moment, petrified by inevitability.

She draws a breath, knocks, and enters.

“Quinn?”

She must look concerned again, and she feels it – her heart is in her throat and her stomach carries the weary emptiness of fear. No words come out until she moistens her lips to speak.

“I put in the paperwork,” she says before she sets the copy for him on his desk. “I’m no longer going to be working under you.”

Garen lifts the page from his desk as he sets the hunk of bread he’d been eating with his soup down on his plate. His movements are slow, and his brow furrowed. He seems to already understand these implications here, the meaning that she could no longer see him for sake of her job, or perhaps that she was hoping to pursue him further, now that they had no work relationship.

“I see…” he says, resting the page back down once he’s finished.

“I… I’ve told you, I need this job. I can’t put it at risk. For Valor, for Dad, for Mom, if ever I find her….” Quinn trails off, struggling to find further words, but there’s a storm brewing in his eyes when he meets her gaze again. It brings out the rest of the words that were deep in her, bubbling up from the darkness. “I’m scared of losing what matters most to me. I don’t want to turn out like Mother – settle down somewhere, never work again, but never losing my wandering soul? That would be torture.”

“We’ve had this conversation,” he rumbles. “You wouldn’t  _lose_ anything. Quinn, you’re acting paranoid. You don’t need to do this,  _I’m_ in charge of who I command.”

Tears well in Quinn’s eyes. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment as she studies his face. It’s rosy now, flustered and frustrated and full of a dim sort of anger – perhaps not towards her, but to someone else. Some cruelty of fate.

“At the end of the day, no you’re not. You have conduct rules set in place by the king. And while the king likes us both, it’s wrong for us to expect that to hold up with our relationship distracting us.” Her bottom lip trembles. “What would Jarvan say to you if he knew about this?”

Garen looks away again, back down to the form that had found its way onto his desk. “I’m not sure.”

“The king likes us as soldiers. He likes us doing our jobs. He may not like us if we neglect that.” Quinn pauses. “We have to part ways. You know I’m right, no matter what your heart is telling you about avoidance. It can’t be a happy ending for us; that’s not who we are as people. We don’t tire, we don’t stop, and when we do, we remain in motion… away from others. There’s a reason we don’t love like that. There’s a reason we’re lonely. It’s for the safety of everyone involved.”

She can read the heartbreak in his eyes, in the way his face has fallen. He doesn’t cry, but he stares distantly between her and the paper with which she’d presented him. And he sighs.

“Good day to you, Garen.”

“Good day,” he replies, voice rough.

Thus, she leaves, and as always, her emotions remain distant to her, just out of her reach and grasp to feel anything but numb. It, like so many other pains, would leave her without her thoughts about it. Work would help. Valor needed his exercise, besides. If Quinn didn’t think about it, Garen might cease to exist in a romantic light. Or even at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Love is Not All, by Edna St. Vincent Millay
> 
> Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink  
> Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;  
> Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink  
> And rise and sink and rise and sink again;  
> Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,  
> Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;  
> Yet many a man is making friends with death  
> Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.  
> It well may be that in a difficult hour,  
> Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,  
> Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,  
> I might be driven to sell your love for peace,  
> Or trade the memory of this night for food.  
> It well may be. I do not think I would.


End file.
